So what is righteousness? It is being in “right standing” with God. Synonyms of the Greek word include innocent, virtuous, approved. It is not something we can achieve on our own. Now matter how hard you try, no matter how closely you follow the rules, you can’t work your way into righteousness. In fact as Israel found out, if you pursue righteousness through the law, you’ll stumble. And to enter God’s presence, we must be righteous. So how do you get it? What’s the passive part all about?

This innocence must be given to us by Christ. We don’t have an active role in the getting of it. No even the faith we have (the means of grace that God uses to impute the righteousness) is something that we get on our own. But faith is probably something best saved for another day. Suffice it to say that the righteousness is passive because we don’t earn it and when we get it we don’t own it. For example, Abraham had faith and it was “credited to him as righteousness”. But that doesn’t mean that Abraham was faultless or innocent. Because he believed in God’s promises, God covered him. I envision that as being sort of like a red-fuzzy blanket that I have. It was given to me and while I have it on I am warm. But the blanket doesn’t change anything in me. I don’t become one with the blanket.

When we have faith and in that faith do good works, that doesn’t have the power to somehow balance out our sin or make us okay in God’s sight. That’s what Celebration of Discipline is getting at when it talks about doing things like fasting, praying, and reading scripture. Doing those things doesn’t change where we stand with God. They are a means of grace that God may use to increase our faith, but that’s it. Once you’re a believer all of that sin is taken care of, past present and future. I think that a number of believers are under the impression that once you are in the habit of studying the bible, praying daily, going to church every time the doors are open, that’s it, you’ve arrived. You’ve attained a righteousness that is sufficient to please God. Well I have to say that it isn’t. You got it before you started doing all of that stuff. You’re covered in Jesus’ righteousness right now.

So why do those things? If we aren’t able to get there on our own then why bother? Well like Paul says in Romans 6, we shouldn’t sin more so that grace abounds. You engage in spiritual discipline for more than a few reasons. I would say that primary would be so that you are in relationship with God. Good stuff happens when you’re close to the Father. It also increases your spiritual maturity, which will hopefully prevent you from leaning on your own righteousness level and may itself lead to assurance. The only thing that “active righteousness” leads to is decline. Remember that doing these things doesn’t make you better than either your brother or the believer. We do it because it pleases God. Granted I’m sure that he’s pleased in much the same way that I’m pleased by my six year old daughter’s pictures. They aren’t great art, but they’re beautiful to me. Our efforts at writing, studying, and praying do benefit us and please God, but probably not in the ways that we’d like to think.

If you fall into the active righteousness trap and start to believe your own press releases, then you’ll become like the Pharisees that built legal fences around God’s law to keep them from even getting close enough to transgressing. That will ultimately lead to its own issues. First you lose your witness. While you’re acting the fool it will give others the opportunity to point out how hypocritical Christians are. You’re also doomed to fail in keeping the law that you set up for yourself. When that happens it should drive you back to God’s grace, but it might also lead you to believe that you should just try harder next time. I know that’s happened to me more times than I care to think of. Let Christ’s righteousness be sufficient for you. God does, so who are you to argue.